Taking place in the heart of Washington, DC, DPLAfest 2016 (April 14-15) will bring together hundreds from DPLA’s large and growing community for interactive workshops, hackathons and other collaborative activities, engaging discussions with community leaders and practitioners, fun events, and more. DPLAfest 2016 will appeal to anyone interested in libraries, technology, ebooks, education, creative reuse of cultural materials, law, open access, and genealogy/family research.

Area institutions serving as co-hosts include the National Archives and Records Administration, the Library of Congress, and the Smithsonian Institution.

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In this workshop, we'll be exploring the GIF in its natural habitat: the internet. But first, some background: What are GIFs? How did they develop? How do you say “GIF”? In this workshop, we’ll explore how to use GIFs, when they’re most successful, the challenges associated with using them, and how to make, find, and use them yourself. We’ll talk about the ins and outs of some content sources, including resources in the DPLA, and review a few apps and programs you can use to make and share them yourself. And then, with some audience input, we’ll be demonstrating how to make a GIF using open source images to tell a joke, punctuate a thought, or convey an emotion. A picture is worth a thousand words? Well, a GIF is worth a million.

Participants will leave with a deeper understanding of the best technology to use to create GIFs and the social circumstances in which they’re most effective. They’ll be empowered to experiment with GIFs on their own, whether that means using a tool like NYPL’s Stereogranimator or going all out with Photoshop. And they’ll receive a worksheet summarizing some key takeaways and resources to use in their adventures.

I'm a Digital Engagement Specialist with the Office of Innovation at the National Archives. I work on a variety of web and social media projects, including Today's Document (todaysdocument.tumblr.com), Archives.gov, and our new pilot crowdsourced history platform, HistoryHub.archives.gov .